


Getting Closer

by eightbitbat



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Kissing, Post-Episode: s02e16 Trajectory, Snowells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 08:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8526199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eightbitbat/pseuds/eightbitbat
Summary: Late at night in the lab, what could possibly happen?





	

More than anything, she wanted to be able to turn her mind off and just work.  Not think, just work.

In the weeks after Jay's death, Caitlin threw herself into her work, trying to avoid the maw of numbness inside her.  First Ronnie, then Jay.  As if that wasn't enough, there was the unbelievable revelation that Jay was Zoom.  She felt like she was becoming numbness personified.  There was nothing she could do but work.  

At least, that was the attempt.  

Harrison Wells inserting himself into her thoughts in inappropriate ways at inappropriate moments was not a part of the plan.  It did, however, help her feel less empty.

Caitlin found herself hoarding his touch.

Harrison's anxiety over Jesse taking off had forced him to forge closer ties with the team, and as a result he had become a bit more hands-on.  At least with her, he was.  Nothing major, just a hand on the shoulder here, a nudge with the arm there, but it was a far cry from his early days on this Earth.  She tried to commit every small touch to memory.  Each one was a thrill, no matter how small.  So was every wry comment, and every shared raised eyebrow over something Cisco said or did. It had all become precious to her.

Caitlin knew that the crush she had developed on the man was a passing thing, a reaction to everything that had happened recently and her brain's way of trying to re-balance itself.  She had decided to immerse herself in the feeling, in hopes that she would overload on him.  The sooner the shine wore off, the sooner she lost interest, the better.  Harrison was still brash and angry, and he wasn't the type to indulge in an infatuated twenty-something, at least she didn't think so.  Even if he was, she wasn’t sure that she wanted him to.  She was content to wallow in romanticized notions of him and leave it at that.

It was a Tuesday evening, and the quips between Cisco and Harry were flying thick and fast. Cisco must have had two extra coffees because he was bouncing off the walls at an even higher rate than normal.  They were digging into solutions for the most recent metahuman threat, Wells at his equations, Cisco tinkering, and Caitlin monitoring the systems while scanning through some promising research.  They were the only ones around, as Barry had taken off a half hour ago and Joe and Iris were at home.  Caitlin bet herself that Cisco's caffeine crash would occur in roughly twenty minutes.

Sixteen minutes later she lost the bet with herself, as he burned through the rest of his energy and started acting childish and snappy.

"Cisco, maybe you should call it a night," she said, though she had small hope he would take her hint gracefully.

"Shh!  Genius at work!  Quiet!"

Harry caught her glance and rolled his eyes.  "Ramon, if you don't get out of here now I'm going to taze you and Snow and I will take turns drawing things on your face."  He waggled the marker in his hand at Cisco while Caitlin tried to smother her laugh.

"Well I'll - I'll taze your...face!  Ugh, fine, whatever, leaving."  He stomped around a little as he put on his coat, but grinned at Caitlin as he left as a sign that his tantrum was mostly for show.

Caitlin returned to her reading and promptly lost herself in the charts.  She didn't notice that Harry had come up behind her until she felt a touch on her shoulder.  She jumped and spun her chair around to find him leaning over her.  "Harry!  You startled me."

He leaned back a bit.  "You were quite engrossed there.  I've been trying to get your attention for five minutes now."

She gave a weak laugh and rubbed the back of her neck nervously.  "It's interesting stuff.  Do you need me for something?"

"I was saying that maybe you should call it a night, too.  You've been here for what, twelve hours now?  Fourteen?  Go home and get some rest."

He paid attention to when she was and wasn't there?  She filed that piece of information away for closer examination later.  Harry was right, though, she was tired.  The research would still be there tomorrow, and the system would notify all of them in case there was an emergency.

Caitlin stood, perhaps a little too quickly, and swayed some from the ensuing head rush.  Harry grasped her arms to steady her.  "Snow, are you ok?"  There was concern in his eyes.

"Fine, fine, I stood up too fast, that’s all."  His hands were still on her upper arms.  He had strong hands, and his grip was just tight enough to brace her should she sway again.  She felt a brief moment of gratitude that she had decided to wear a sleeveless top today, added the sensation of his hands gripping her bare arms to her mental file, and tried to arrange her face in a reassuring smile. "I'm fine, Harry, really."

He frowned at her but nodded.  His grip slackened a bit, but he didn't move his hands.  She realized they were standing far closer together than was normal.  Harry must have taken a step towards her when she was dizzy.  Their proximity gave her an unusually close view of him.  He looked tired, but it was late and Harry was a workaholic under a massive amount of stress, so it wasn't strange to see him so.  His jaw bore a trace of stubble.  She wondered what he would look like with a beard.  Caitlin also wondered, not for the first time, what it would be like to kiss him.  With a small start, she remembered that they were still standing extremely close together, he was holding on to her, and she was standing there staring at his mouth.  She flicked her eyes upward to see him staring back at her.  He was looking at her just as intently as she had been looking at him, peering at her as if she was a puzzle he needed to solve.

She wasn't sure who moved in first.  It wasn't some slow, languid thing.  It was more like the attraction of magnets.  Between one heartbeat and the next she found her lips on his.

Her mind felt like two distinct entities then: the observer and the participant.  While the participant was inhaling out of surprise and lightly running her hand up his chest, the observer was cataloging every detail about the moment.  How his lips felt (softer than she had expected, slightly dry, firm against her own), what his hands were doing (the hand on one arm had moved to cup her cheek, while the other moved down to her waist), the not unpleasant scratchiness of his stubble, his heart racing under her hand on his chest, the pressure of his hand on her cheek as he tilted her head.  The sensation of his tongue against hers, his arm pulling her body against his - 

\- her observer now melded completely with her participant and she abandoned any pretense of higher thought.  She let herself surrender to the wave of warmth flooding through her, washing the numbness away.  All she could do was press herself against him, now gasping for breath as he freed her lips and applied his own to her jaw and neck.  He was practically holding her up, which was good, as her knees had gone quite weak.  He still cupped her cheek, lightly stroking it as his mouth made its way back up her neck.  

Harry pulled back for a brief second, catching her eyes with his own, as if he was gauging her response.  Her response was to crush her mouth to his once again, a gesture that generated a small growl in his throat.  The sound of it, the feeling of it as she pressed against him, shot fire straight through her.  He turned her slightly and nudged her backwards towards the desk.  His hands were both at her waist now, fingers splayed to grasp her hips.  Caitlin knew that he was about to lift her onto the desk, to press himself more fully against her, and felt the muscles in his arms tense as he gripped her -

That was when the metahuman alarm sounded, causing them to break off and both look over to the monitor.

"Dammit."  He turned back to her and rested his forehead against hers, breathing deeply.  "Barry will be here soon."

"Yeah, and the others won’t be far behind him."  She couldn’t really move, as he still had her backed up to the desk, but she regained enough of her brain functions to actually think about what she had just been doing, with _Doctor Harrison Wells_ no less, who was still clutching her in ways that revealed exactly how he was reacting to what they had been doing. 

Harry pulled back from her a bit, enough to look her in the eye.  His eyes, irises dilated with lust, were more piercing than ever. He leaned down and gave her another brief, if bruising, kiss, then tilted his head and whispered into her ear, voice low and rough, "This here, this is to be continued."  The feel of his breath on her ear and the intensity in his voice made her shiver.  He took a few steps back from her, with obvious reluctance.  "Now, Dr. Snow, you'd better go freshen up, or they're going to wonder what exactly you've been up to at S.T.A.R. Labs tonight."

Caitlin crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at him.  "Is that so?"  She grabbed her bag from under the desk and dug out a tissue.  "I'm not the only one that needs to freshen up, Dr. Wells, as it looks to me like you’ve got quite a bit of my favorite red lipstick smeared on your face."  She tossed the tissue at him with a smirk and ducked out into the hallway.  As the door to the ladies' room closed behind her, she heard the familiar whoosh that let her know Barry had arrived.  She smiled and wondered if Harry had been able to clean off her lipstick in time.


End file.
